ged brutality, it was even more important that no strong
resentment should be supposed to have grown up on his part against his
tormentor. This delicate task was managed by the attorney with such
consummate skill, that, when the evidence on both sides was closed,
public sympathy, if not public conviction, had undergone a very
perceptible change. The prosecutors, aware of this, felt the success of
their case endangered, and exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent
the tide, now almost in equilibrium, from ebbing back with a violence
proportionate to that of its flow. But the argument even of their ablest
champion, John ----, seemed almost puerile, in comparison with this, the
last effort of George ----,--an effort which was long remembered, even
less on account of its melancholy termination than for its extraordinary
eloquence. The Kentuckians of that day were accustomed to hear
Breckenridge, Clay, Talbot, Allen, and Grundy, all men of singular
oratorical fame,--but never, we have heard it affirmed, was a more
moving appeal poured into the ears of a Kentucky jury. Availing himself
of every resource of professional skill, he now demonstrated, to the
full satisfaction of many, the utter inadequacy of the circumstantial
evidence upon which so much stress had been laid to justify a
conviction,--sifting and weighing carefully every fact and detail,
and trying the conclusions that had been drawn therefrom by the most
rigorous and searching logic,--and then, assailing the credibility of
the testimony brought forward to prove the habitual cruelty of his
client, he gave utterance to a withering torrent of invective and
sarcasm, in which the character of the main hostile witness shrivelled
and blackened like paper in a flame. Then--having been eight hours on
his feet--he began to avail himself of that last dangerous resource
which genius only may use,--the final arrow in the lawyer's quiver,
which is so hard to handle rightly, and, failing, may prove worse than
useless, but, sped by a strong hand and true aim, often tells decisively
on a hesitating jury,--we mean a direct appeal to their feelings. Like a
skilful leader who gathers all his exhausted squadrons when he sees the
crisis of battle approaching, the great advocate seemed now to summon
every overtaxed power of body and spirit to his aid, as he felt that the
moment was come when he must wring an acquittal from the hearts of his
hearers. Nor did either soul or intellect fai